


Stealing Hearts

by Pastelbandana



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: DICE allusions, For recipient 68, M/M, Phantom Thief/Detective AU, Saiouma Exchange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-16 10:29:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15435069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pastelbandana/pseuds/Pastelbandana
Summary: Shuuichi Saihara wants more than anything to solve the case of the Phantom Thief, but he gets more than he bargained for when he's confronted face to face with his mysterious nemesis. Soon Shuuichi is so intrigued by the Phantom Thief, he will do anything to learn more about him and his secrets.





	Stealing Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> My part of the Saiouma Exchange for recipient 68!! Sorry it ran a little on the longer side! I hope you like it! 
> 
> Prompt: Phantom thief/detective AU - the more glamorously over the top and tropey about their forbidden rivalmance, the better. Maybe a ‘heist’ turns out to actually be an elaborate lead into a grand romantic gesture? Shuichi can feel conflicted/trade derisive quips, but the attraction should definitely be reciprocated.

The Phantom Thief was ellusive, that was a given. Many people tried to catch him, but none had succeeded thus far, making him rise higher and higher each week on the wanted list. He hadn’t hurt a single person—minus the hearts of those he stole from. But the thief did was thieves were best at: he stole. He stole anything from small rare items to large pricey collectables from full scale break-ins to heavily guarded areas. It got to the point where in the city there was a running joke that security companies should use the Phantom Thief to test their product’s ability.

Shuuichi scratched his head. He’d been on this case for a while and it honestly felt like a useless chase some days. Hints were dropped by the thief occasionally, but still nothing matched up, no matter how hard he, or anyone else, tried.

He felt like slamming his head on the desk, if only to knock himself out and get rid of the annoying headache he was getting from this case.

He felt like there was something very clear he was missing.

* * *

Shuuichi’s first meeting with the Phantom Thief was something he was somewhat excited for (if the definition of “meeting” meant chasing after someone while they ran away with expert speed and mobility). While the Phantom Thief case had been going on, unsolved and stagnant, this was Shuuichi’s first time he was being allowed on the field at a place they suspected the Phantom Thief would next strike. It had taken a bit of pleading, his request in requiring a long, drawn out approval process. In the end they decided that if his uncle was okay with it, it would be fine. His uncle initially had pushed back, but it soon became apparent that if he wanted Shuuichi to help with the case any further it was a necessary thing. In this case, the Phantom Thief’s reputation worked quite well for Shuuichi. Despite being famous with the public for the crimes he boldly and meticulously committed, he was even more famous within the police force for his consistently good track record of never injuring anyone. Even when it seemed like he would be forced to turn to violence to free himself of a bad situation, he never did.

Shuuichi looked at the building carefully. Would the Phantom Thief really strike tonight? It was such a beautiful night, the moon high in the sky, the moonlight and the streetlights making the entire area look like a scene out of a movie.

Behind him, a radio fizzled to life and he sighed, the radio bringing him out of his thoughts.

His uncle came over to his side and turned his radio up, giving Shuuichi a stern look.

“Shuuichi…” he warned. “You were told to keep your radio on and up at all times.”

“Sorry,” Shuuichi said, but he could care less, truthfully. The radio was loud and noisy, and he could barely hear the messages clearly anyway, the words coming through with so much static it challenged his tolerance level. If he needed to know anything, he was sure he would be able to find it out from the cops behind him, moving around and getting into position.

“That radio could save your life,” his uncle told him. When he saw Shuuichi’s unbelieving face, he shook his head and sighed. “Just… keep it on, alright?”

“Alright,” Shuuichi said, nodding his head, appeasing his uncle. When his uncle walked away though,  Shuuichi reached down to his radio and lowered it once more—not all the way off, but just low enough it was _barely_ audible. Who’d want the radio blaring during a time like this anyway? They already didn’t have any stealth, but Shuuichi would like to pretend they had _something_.

All around him he heard mummering as they scanned the building and went over basic procedures with each other, as if they hadn’t done this a million times. What to do once spotted, how to engage, and how to neutralize and take into custody the Phantom Thief—a topic which tended to pull snickers out from everyone listening before their commanders shut them up with a stern glare.  

“We _will_ catch this menace!” The captain shouted in what Shuuichi was sure was supposed to be some sort of inspiring cry. The force nodded their heads solemnly, as if they were trying to believe it, but Shuuichi knew that they had very little confidence in this mission. At this point, the people involved in this case were starting to become the laughing stock of the city, seen as useless to be unable to stop a simple thief, with the reputation of the police force suffering one embarrassment after another.  

Shuuichi sighed. While the line officer were seen as the main force behind the investigation, the detectives did, occasionally, field a volley of criticism. However, no one ever mentioned, by name, his uncle or him, a fact he was happy with. It didn’t mean his uncle didn’t feel the pressure though. He could see with each and everyday, failed attempt after failed attempt, the man becoming more and more angry and flustered. The closer they got, the more upset he got at the end of the day. It was like trying to hold sand between his hands. His uncle put up a good mask though, like all good detectives did, and did not appear bothered by anything, but Shuuichi could tell exactly how his uncle felt about the situation.

As the time ticked on, it had various effects on people. Some people began to relax, slouch in their posture as they became more and more certain the thief had been messing with them, while others became tenser, feeling as if the thief was now certainly going to strike at any moment.

For Shuuichi, it was an odd mix of the two. On one hand he felt relieved that the thief wouldn’t show up—it meant there wouldn’t be a chance for a confrontation, which put his nerves at rest and stopped the initial flight-or-fight reflex that smothered him the moment he stepped onto the scene. On the other hand, it made him wonder if the thief was watching them out here, waiting for the exact moment for when they did drop their guard to strike. That notion sent sparks of nervousness coursing through his body.

Shuuichi took a glance at his watch and felt his eyes grow wide. It was currently 2 A.M., how did anyone deal with waiting for someone for this long. He walked up to his uncle who wasn’t far ahead of him. “How long do they typically stay out here?” He asked, glancing back at the police force.

“Depends. Seems like tonight we’re in for the long haul. Apparently, there’s some good source backing it up that the thief will defini—”

Alarms blared from the building in front of them, cutting his uncle off.

Behind him, he heard the police yelling, shuffling as they got into position. Shuuichi’s uncle grabbed his wrist and pushed themselves between the cops, making it to the back of the ranks, to a place where they were safe if anything bad was to happen. From this angle, Shuuichi still had a pretty good view of the building, if not with a few heads slightly in the way.

He watched the building with a tense body and bated breath as the alarm kept blaring, but nothing happened. Everyone was dead still, frozen with anticipation, as the alarm cut through the silence with a never-ending ear piercing screech. Was it a false alarm? Nothing had happened yet, and Shuuichi was beginning to think something was wrong with that.

He was proved wrong though when a shadow dash across one of the upper floor windows before disappearing again. Shuuichi took a sharp breath in and opened his mouth to ask if anyone else had seen that, but a glare from his uncle made him snap his mouth shut. He wondered if his uncle saw it too, if everyone saw it, or if his uncle was just trying not to throw the police into an unorganized frenzy with just a simple shadow.

They waited a bit more, the alarm never stopped. As the alarm kept going, Shuuichi tried to block it out and think as best as he could. Did the building have good security or was the thief simply bad at avoiding it? Did he mean to trip the alarm, was it something done on purpose? Had the thief been in there for longer then they thought, but they just didn’t know because the alarm wasn’t going off? Shuuichi bit his lip. It would be hard to determine anything without other evidence, but something about this situation bugged Shuuichi a bit, especially how the thief was taking so long in the building even after the alarm was going off.

Watching, watching, watching. Shuuichi saw the same shadow a few more times, sometimes he would catch the tail end of the shadow and other times he would catch the entire thing dashing across. There was no way the police weren’t seeing it too with how many times the shadow had crossed Shuuichi’s sight.

Still, he waited patiently, wanting to speak out, but feeling as if it was being expected of him to keep his mouth shut for at least now as he had no prior knowledge of how things like this went down.

He snuck a quick glance at his watch, noticing that despite the feeling of watching the building forever, it had only been short of a half hour at this point.

Why was the team not engaging the thief? Shuuichi felt almost embarrassed by how little he knew of their procedures, but at the same time it wasn’t as if he had been trained on their procedures before hand.

Shuuichi saw the shadow in the building again and his eyes snapped to it. But this time it did something weird. Instead of moving around like it had before, instead the shadow stood still for a few seconds, looking out and onto the offices gathered beneath the building. The shadow slowly became smaller and smaller as the thief backed up, but Shuuichi watched it as best as he could, and, after a certain point, the shadow disappeared.

A few tense and stressful seconds went by; Shuuichi could hear his heart beating fast and loud as he watched with intense focus and quick breathing.  

Suddenly, the shadow rushed at the window and glass shattered as the thief jumped from the building.

Shuuichi’s heart leapt into his throat, but he forced himself to keep watching, tracking the shadow as it soared across the sky before safely landing on the roof of the next building.

Shuuichi felt himself let go of a breath he didn’t know he was holding when he saw the thief land.

All at once though, as if Shuuichi had temporarily been stuck in a moment of time, everything around him seemed to resume in a flurry of action.

There was shouting to chase after the thief, and cops all around him started to run, almost trampling him in the process as they pushed him aside to move where they wanted.

“Shuuichi!” His uncle shouted, and Shuuichi whipped his head around in an attempt to find his uncle. When he managed to find him, he was surprised to see that his uncle was going in the direction that the police were going. His uncle waved Shuuichi on. “Come on! What are you doing standing there?”

Shuuichi stammered before rushing towards the direction the cops were running too. His uncle, upon seeing that Shuuichi was following, nodded his head and went back to running alongside the cops.

He looked up, trying to see the thief, but all he ended up doing was seeing a blur as the thief jumped to another building. Shuuichi had no choice but to follow after the cops as best he could.

He managed to keep up with the group until they reached an alleyway, where he stopped, trying to gather his breath as best as he could. He hadn’t been running in a while—running was never his sort of thing in the first place—and his legs protested at his every movement, his lungs burning with the same intensity.

Since he was at the back of the group, no one noticed as he slowly got further and further away from him as they kept moving. He put his right hand on the wall, trying to use it to support himself as best as he could as he tried to gather his bearings again.

Shuuichi heart pounded and the sound of his breaths and occasional coughs filled the air; the rest of the group was far off now, he was all alone.

“Aw, not a big runner?” A light, teasing voice asked.

Shuuichi’s breath stopped and he dug his fingertips into and down the wall, scoffing them up a bit.

The person continued. “It’s okay, I’m not a big runner either.”

Slowly, Shuuichi turned around to meet the source of the voice.

He was expecting to see some thug, some person with a gun or knife trained on his every move. Instead, he was greeted to a person who was even shorter than he was.

The other’s outfit was dominated by what seemed like a theme of mostly white, with purple splashed in here and there, and a black-and-white checkerboard pattern could be seen on multiple parts of the costume in small amounts, such as the ribbon at the base of the hat he wore. Shuuichi would be lying if he said the white suit didn’t look good on the other. His purple hair helped fit the theme too, making Shuuichi give the other an entire quick one over as he admired shamelessly how good the other actually looked. It was a shame the mask he had on hid part of his face, and the only thing he could see of it was his dazzling purple eyes.

The other scoffed. “If I knew you were going to just sit here and ogle me all night, I wouldn’t have bothered coming down to talk to you.”

Shuuichi gave a shocked noise and felt his cheeks instantly flush red. “N-No! That’s not what I was doing at all!”

The other gave a little laugh. “It’s okay, I’ve been watching you the whole night too, it’s only fair for you to get a good look at me. Plus, who wouldn’t want to look at my amazing costume. I put a lot of work into it, ya know!”

“Watching me the whole night?” Shuuichi asked, voice growing small. “So you’re the—”

“Carnival ring leader!” The other interrupted him with shining eyes.  “Don’t I just look the part perfectly?”

“Actually I was thinking more along the lines of the ‘Phantom Thief,’” Shuuichi said glaring at the other.

“Nope.”

“You do know ring leaders at carnivals typically wear red, right? If you wanted to go for anything, it would have been smarter to say you’re a magician.”

“Ooh, caught by the smart little detective! What an honor!”

“Why?” Shuuichi asked suddenly.

The thief froze. “Why what?” He asked back.

Why do you steal? How have you been evading the law for so long? What is your goal in the end? Is anyone forcing you to do this? Among a thousand other questions, only one slipped out, “Why did you come down to talk to me?”

The thief nodded his head, as if the topic and his own actions interested him too. “It’s so mean they left you behind!” The thief cried out. “So I thought I’d come down and keep you company instead.”

Shuuichi looked at the thief. He had definitely heard something slight in his voice. It was unnoticeable to the untrained ear, and even to his ears and thought process, it was difficult to pick up on if he was telling the truth. The thief had no reason to tell the truth, if Shuuichi was being honest with himself.

“Is that really why you came down here?” Shuuichi asked with suspicion laced in his voice.

“Well, I also have a reputation to keep. It wouldn’t do any good if you happened to fall victim to your own weak lungs. They would blame that on me, probably. Can you believe it!?”

That Shuuichi could understand. The thief did have a spotless record of no one being seriously hurt during a mission to capture him, and Shuuichi could understand why the thief wouldn’t want Shuuichi to be the first blemish on his “good” record.

But still, something bothered him. “Is that all?”

“Well, maybe one other reason too,” the thief admitted.

A moment of silence was shared before them, before Shuuichi cleared his throat.

“Are you going to tell me or—”

“Nope!” The thief said with a giant smile across his face. “A magician never gives away all his secrets!”

“...You’re not a magician, though,” Shuuichi said, but he smiled a bit too. The banter was too friendly, and Shuuichi knew he should be anything but friendly with the target, but he couldn’t help but enjoy the way the thief had a natural way of joking about things that made him relax a bit.  

“Well, it was nice meeting you, detective.”

“You’re goin—” Shuuichi cut himself off before he could continue. “You can’t go,” he changed the sentence.

“Oh? And what’s stopping me? Why could I possibly not go?”

Shuuichi tried to come up with a reason, but found everything he could think of to be weak. “Because you should stay with me to make sure that the police come and get here so I get home safe.”

“If they haven’t realized that they’re chasing thin air by now, then they’re seriously dumb. Plus, this is a pretty safe part of town, I doubt _anyone_ would commit any sort of crime here at this time of night. Nothing will probably happen to you if you’re here by yourself for a bit.”

Shuuichi sighed at the thief words, knowing he could do little to stop the thief.

“Well, if that’s all for now, see you soon my beloved detective!” The thief said, taking his hat off of his head and giving a quick bow before running down the alley and taking a turn into another one of the narrow streets.

It took Shuuichi a moment to recover from the thief’s words, but when he did, he ran down the street the thief had went down in a fluster.

No one was there.

Shuuichi looked around, thinking this must have been some kind of trick, but within moments, it became clear that the thief truly wasn’t there.  

He stared into space for a few moments, as if it would somehow alight the way to wherever the hell the thief had went. He wished the thief would have stayed a little longer, to be honest.  

With the heavy knowledge of knowing what he had to do now, he sighed and reached down to the radio he had kept on him, volume low. He cautiously turned the knob on the top so that the volume increased slowly, ready to pull it away from his face in a moment’s notice if the other side was filled with yelling.  

Thankfully, the other side wasn’t filled with yelling. What he wasn’t thankful for was the dead tone voice on the other side that sounded like a record on repeat.

“Shuuichi Saihara, do you copy?” The voice said, waiting a few more moments before repeating the message again.  “Shuuichi Saihara do you c—”

“Yes. I copy, that is,” he said, his voice almost cracking with nervousness.

“Shuuichi Saihara, where are you?” The same monotone voice asked. It was dead silent on the other end when the officer talked, and Shuuichi had the faint idea that they were all gathered around and listening to the coms.

“Near the alley entrance,” he said, quickly walking out of the alleyway he had followed the thief into and back to where he claimed he was. “Back when everyone was running; I just couldn’t keep up.”

“That’s okay boy,” the officer said, and Shuuichi almost sighed with relief. At least he wasn’t going to be in too much trouble. “What’s not okay is how we’ve been calling your name on this radio for the past five minutes.” And there went his chance of getting out of this without too much trouble.

“Stay there, we’re sending officers to get you.”

Shuuichi nodded his head, before realizing that they needed a verbal response and responded with a shaky, “yes,” before he lifted his finger off of the button and let it fall to his side.

His uncle was so going to kill him.

* * *

His uncle didn’t even bother coming to pick him up with the other officers, giving the very clear impression to Shuuichi that he did not exactly want to see his nephew until he had to.  

The cops who picked him up were none too happy with him either, though he doubted their anger was even a portion of what his uncle was feeling right now.

When they made it back to where all the cops were waiting, Shuuichi looked for his uncle and saw him talking to one of the cops. When he spotted Shuuichi, though, he gave the cop at a pat on the shoulder and waved goodbye to him as he started to walk over to Shuuichi .

When his uncle reached him, Shuuichi felt as if he was going to start sweating out a river.

“I’m sorry,” Shuuichi tried right off the bat, trying to see if it helped any.

To his misfortune, his uncle kept looking at him as if he expected Shuuichi to explain himself more.

So he did. “I… just couldn’t keep up with the group,” he admitted.

His uncle shook his head. “Not being able to keep up and stopping is okay, but not _telling_ anyone, not sending a message over radio, not _responding_ —that’s the real problem here.”

Shuuichi bowed his head in shame. “Sorry.”

His uncle exhaled a sigh. “Just don’t do it again,” his uncle warned sternly.

Shuuichi’s head shot up. “I’m being allowed to go on another?”

“As long as the same problem doesn’t keep happening, yes.”

“Thank—”

“But we are getting you more into shape with running before that happens,” his uncle told him, clearly leaving no room for wiggle space.

His head dropped again. “Yes.”

His senses tingled, but he ignored the overbearing feeling of being watched.

* * *

Shuuichi managed to get out of having running practice with his uncle by convincing him to instead let him train with his friend Kaito instead.

It had taken a bit of convincing, but after a little bit of nudging, and a staged visit by Kaito in which he drags Shuuichi out to go “exercise,” his uncle was okay with the idea, as long as he demonstrated improvement.

Shuuichi hadn’t expected Kaito to actually make him run though, especially not in 80 degree weather.

Shuuichi huffed as he made it back to where Kaito was waiting patiently for him on a bench under the shade, almost knocking his head on the back of the bench as he collapsed into it. Kaito gave him a thumbs up as he sipped on his drink. Shuuichi greedily grabbed his water and drank most of it down.

“We’re—” Shuuichi took another moment to catch his breath, barely able to complete a sentence with how heavy he was breathing, “—done, right?”

“For the day, yeah,” Kaito confirmed.

“Oh thank God,” Shuuichi groaned, taking another sip of his water.

“You did great!” Kaito said, trying to cheer him up.

Shuuichi didn’t _feel_ great. In fact, he felt quite the opposite of “great.” His hair clung to his forehead, and his shirt, although bought specifically for running and other exercise, clung to him a bit. Not to mention, his legs were sore, as was generally every part of his body.

“You sure you don’t want to do another lap?” Kaito asked.

“Absolutely,” Shuuichi told him.

“Alright, just asking. Nothing happens if you don’t try to go beyond what you think you can do!”

“Kaito, I don’t even think I can _stand_ right now.”

“... Yeah maybe we should work on that one first, then.”

* * *

As a reward for the amount of running Shuuichi had done, Kaito brought him to a local cafe. Shuuichi was hesitant to accept—he was sure his entire being consisted of only waves of B.O. radiating off of him at this point—but Kaito dragged him into it anyway.  

As expected, he got a few people who looked at him and crinkled there noses, but he ordered and then proceeded to choose a spot over in the back where no one would have to be near them.

Kaito followed after him, holding the little buzzer the host had given him. He sat down at the table and yawned, placing the buzzer in the middle of the table.

“What are you so tired about?” Shuuichi asked.

“It’s been a long, hard day,” Kaito responded, throwing his hands behind his head and leaning back in the chair.

“A ‘long, hard day’ watching me run, right?”

“Being moral support counts too!” Kaito retorted. “I can’t run for you.”

“Have you even run as many laps as you made me run?”

“Sure I have.”

“Right,” Shuuichi said doubtfully.

“Why did you even need to start running anyway? Not that it’s not great for you, it’s just you don’t seem like you’re doing it for something you want.”

“I don’t want to do it,” Shuuichi muttered bitterly. “My uncle is making me.”

“Ah, so that’s why you had me make that big scene at your house that day. I was wondering what the real deal behind that was.”

“You know of the Phantom Thief, right?” Shuuichi asked.

Kaito nodded his head. “Who doesn’t at this point?”

“Well, let’s just hypothetically _assume_ that I was on the case. And let’s just _assume_ that I may or may not have utterly failed when it came to running. And let’s also _assume_ that I caused quite the commotion apparently by not telling anyone I stopped to catch my breath. Therefore, we can _assume_ that it may or may not have led to this situation. Maybe.”

“Wow, that sucks for you.”

“I said hypothetically.”

Kaito shrugged. “Yeah right, and the buzzer is ‘hypothetically’ going off.”

Shuuichi looked at the buzzer and, sure enough, it was going off. Kaito grabbed it before he could though and stood up to go and get their food. Shuuichi sighed and slumped in his chair. He didn’t even tell Kaito _why_ he had such a persistence to get back on the case. He didn’t tell Kaito that he wanted to meet the thief again, that ever since Shuuichi saw him in action up close, he couldn’t get his mind off of the thief. Shuuichi was self aware enough to know that where once he had mental clarity, now he swam in the waters of obsession.  

* * *

Waving goodbye to Kaito, Shuuichi finally managed to get home and relax in his bed. That was until his uncle decided to come into his room.

“What?” Shuuichi groaned.

“Just letting you know I’m leaving for a bit. We got another lead on the Phantom Thief so I have to go.”

Shuuichi shot up out of his bed. “Wait! Let me come with you!”

His uncle glanced at him. “You were just complaining a minute ago about how sore you were from today. Don’t think I didn’t hear you earlier when you got home. I think it’d be best if you stayed home and relaxed or something.”

“But,” Shuuichi tried to protest, “I’ve been working really hard! Just let me stay in the car or _something_.”

His uncle sighed. “Alright, just come on, we have to be there soon.”

In his head, Shuuichi mentally gave himself a victory pat. To his uncle though, he nodded his head and rushed off to go get his coat and hat.

* * *

When his uncle and him arrived at the place the thief would supposedly strike next, Shuuichi got a few glances and glares from the other cops.

“Gonna cause a problem again, boy?” One of the officers came up to the car window and laughed.

“No, sir,” Shuuichi said, gritting his teeth.

“I can promise you he won’t,” his uncle chirped in. “He’s staying in the car this time.”

The officer nodded his head and walked away.

“And that better stay true, Shuuichi,” his uncle said, giving him a fierce look. “I don’t know why you wanted to come along when you can’t do much, but you better not get out of this car for any reason.”

“Yes.”

His uncle took off Shuuichi’s hat and ruffled his hair before placing the hat back. Shuuichi reached up, flustered, and adjusted the hat.

His uncle chuckled. “Alright. Be good.”

* * *

Shuuichi wondered why the cops always decided to show up hours before the thief ended up doing anything.

His uncle had left him with the keys, so Shuuichi could luckily charge his phone or turn on the air conditioning if he needed, but it was still boring to wait so long for the thief to do anything. His uncle had also placed the car out of the way. Shuuichi understood that his uncle’s car couldn’t be in the way of the cop cars, but it was still a bit annoying to Shuuichi to be as far away as he was.

Other than the one cop who had come up to the car earlier, no one bothered to check on Shuuichi. Not that he didn’t see them glance at him once in a while, but no one came and actually check on him.

After a while, Shuuichi’s boredom and calm patience grew into restlessness and his once sore legs now itched do something besides sit.

Shuuichi looked out the window unamused. The building the thief was supposed to be raiding tonight was similar to how it had been the other night. It was silent for right now, and Shuuichi had yet to see any shadows, and he wondered if that was something the thief typically did.

Shuuichi turned his eyes back to his phone and tried to find something to distract him.

* * *

Little over an hour passed, and everyone was getting prepared. Honestly, Shuuichi felt a bit bad for them with the way they constantly had to scurry around trying to get prepared as fast as possible. He knew they never considered it a guarantee the thief would appear, but it was still weird to see them always be shocked when the thief was confirmed to be in their area.

With the way Shuuichi was excluded from the entire situation, it honestly felt like he was watching a movie—a boring one that was just getting to it’s climax, but a movie nonetheless.

Finally, after not much time, the thief made his exit the same dramatic way as he had the last time. Or at least, Shuuichi assumed (the angle he was at made it hard to see certain things) due to the glass that plummeted to the ground and the police running all in the same direction.

Watching the cops go, Shuuichi waited. Once he was sure there were no more cops, he did the exact thing his uncle had told him not to do: get out of the car.

He stretched his limbs as he got out, his legs eager to get out of their cramped position. He made sure to lock the car before he left. He was sure he wouldn’t be gone for long, but he didn’t want anyone to break in in the meantime. Not to mention, without having a radio of his own, it would be hard to know when the cops had given up and started to return, so he had to be fast.  

Cautiously, he followed the direction the cops had gone, looking around at the tops of the buildings as if he would be able to see the Phantom Thief if he just looked up.

“You know, you really have a problem with listening to orders, don’t you?”

“So I suppose you have a problem with eavesdropping, if that’s the case,” Shuuichi told the thief as he turned around. Once he turned around though, he had to catch his breath. “Oh.”

The thief wore the same costume as before, and there was virtually nothing different about him, minus the slowly dripping shallow cut on the side of his face.

The thief saw where Shuuichi was looking and sighed. “That’s what I get for not wearing a full mask and breaking glass all the time. Was bound to happen one of these days. Don’t worry about it.”

Shuuichi bit his lip in consideration. He knew he wasn’t supposed to help the enemy in any way, but seeing even a cut that didn’t seem to bother the thief made Shuuichi want to help him. “Erm, if you want, I have some first aid stuff in our car. I can get that.”

“Aw, how cute, the detective wants to help me. Like I said, don’t worry about it.”

Despite the thief’s conviction for Shuuichi not to worry about it, Shuuichi couldn’t help it. “Wait here.”

Before the thief could say anything, Shuuichi had already rushed off, not wanting to spare another minute bantering with the thief over something. Plus, it gave him the perfect chance to make sure no one had returned yet.

Luck, for once, was on his side, because the area was still as abandoned as he remembered it. He unlocked his uncle’s car and opened up the trunk. His uncle had had kept a first aid supply kit in here as a precautionary to his work, not just for himself, but for other people too.

It was heavy with materials of all kinds, but Shuuichi didn’t have much of a struggle holding it or bringing it out of the car.

When he returned to where he had left the phantom thief, he was grateful that the thief was still there instead of running off. He set the kit on the ground and urged the thief to sit down, to which he shook his head.

Shuuichi sighed, but did nothing to try to get the thief to sit. Shuuichi bent down and unzipped the bag, feeling like he should be careful of having his head down to the thief in such a way, but found that he felt as if he knew nothing would happen. If the thief had wanted to do anything, he could have done it when Shuuichi had turned his back to him or ambushed him in an unfriendly way.

He hurriedly put some alcohol on a cotton swab and pressed it to the thief’s cheek, making the thief give a small hiss.

“Sorry,” Shuuichi said, wincing. Shuuichi knew how much alcohol could sting and he was grateful he hadn’t had to use it in a long time. “Hey at least there’s no glass stuck in the cut.”

“It feels like you’re pushing glass into my cut right now,” the thief muttered.

Shuuichi’s lips twitched upwards. “Sorry,” he said, but this time there was little actual sorrow or empathy in his voice.

“Laugh it up,” the thief pouted, but his tone held no seriousness to it, and held a joking tone.

Done with cleaning the cut, he put a little bit of antibiotic cream on it, and found a bandage large enough to cover the cut and carefully stuck it onto the thief’s face.

The thief rubbed the bandaid once Shuuichi had placed it on his face, making sure it was smoothed out and correctly placed.

“Thanks,” the thief said.

Shuuichi nodded his head, zipping the bag on the ground back up, but leaving it on the ground.

“Why don’t you wear a bigger mask that covers more of your face?” Shuuichi asked.

“Bigger masks are much more cumbersome to wear,” he told Shuuichi, waving him off. “Plus, they also hide my face more.”

“Well, yeah, that’s the point.”

“Are you saying,” the thief started, “that you think I’m so ugly I should cover my face?”

Shuuichi’s eyes went wide and he shook his head rapidly. “‘No! Of course not! I think your face is quite pretty actually, well erm, at least what I can see of it at least, and I didn’t—”

Shuuichi stopped his rapid talking when the thief started to laugh. “I was just joking!” The thief said, laughing. “But, how kind of you.”

“Huh?” Shuuichi made a confused noise.

“You said you thought my face is pretty,” the thief said, trying to jog his memory a bit of the words that had rapidly flowed out of his mouth.

Shuuichi blushed a deep red, only making the thief laugh harder.

“Well, if it’s anything, I think your face is quite pretty yourself, detective.”

If that comment wasn’t supposed to make Shuuichi blush even harder, he wasn’t sure what it was meant to do.

“T-Thanks,” he stuttered out, tilting his head down and hiding his red face from the thief.

Shuuichi heard the ruffling of fabric, and looked up, seeing the thief fiddling with the front pocket of his suit. From the pocket, the thief pulled a blue flower head and held his hand out, motioning with his head for Shuuichi to take it.  

Shuuichi hesitantly reached for the flower head and took it into his hands. It was a beautiful dark blue, with soft petals that Shuuichi ran his fingers over and marveled at how they felt.  

Once he was done inspecting the flower, he tried to hand it back to the thief, who shook his head.

“For you,” the thief told him, and Shuuichi looked at it shocked.

“But it’s yours.”

“And now it’s _yours_ ,” the thief responded.

“Are you sure?”

“Yup!”

Shuuichi smiled at the thief and placed the flower into one of the interior pockets of his coat.

“That’ll be one million.”

Shuuichi sputtered, looking at the thief with disbelieving eyes.

After a moment, and seeing Shuuichi’s face grow in panic, the thief laughed again. “You really need to work on knowing when people are joking with you.”

It was Shuuichi’s turn to pout now. “I know perfectly well when people are joking with me.”

The thief made a noise of disbelief.

“Alright, maybe not always,” Shuuichi conceded.

Suddenly, terror overcame Shuuichi. He took out his phone from his pocket and glanced at the time, the terror only growing stronger. “Shit,” he uttered under his breath. He grabbed the kit on the ground and the thief gave him a weird look.

“What are you doing?”

“I have to get back before they notice I left!”

“Oh, that? Don’t worry about that. They’re still chasing “me,”” the thief said, puffing his chest out a bit.

That made Shuuichi stop. “Huh?”

The thief lifted his hair up a bit and put his head to the side, showing Shuuichi a small earpiece that would otherwise be totally hidden by his hair. “They’re currently chasing around one of the others. When you went to go grab that kit, I told that person to keep leading them on a goosechase.”

“You don’t work alone?”

The thief seemed to think about telling the answer to him for a bit before shaking his head. “Maybe, maybe not. Most likely no.”

But Shuuichi knew that had to be a lie, because the thief had just told him that he _was_ working with another person. Which, now that he thought about it, would make a lot of the oddities he had studied in this case over the many months he had been reading about it make somewhat more sense than when under the assumption that he was working alone.

The thief smiled as he watched the detective work it over in his head. But alas, even he knew there times must come to an end soon. “You won’t be in trouble, but I do think you should head back now anyway.”

Shuuichi nodded his head, agreeing with the thief.

“If you want to meet again though,” the thief said, “here.” The thief fished a piece of paper out of his pocket. It was folded up into many squares and made as small as possible.

Shuuichi took it from the thief and placed it in the same pocket he placed the flower, a sure spot he knew he wouldn’t forget.

“If we don’t meet again, well then, thanks for the wonderful time we spent together at least,” the thief said smiling. “It was fun to meet someone who didn’t automatically try to arrest me. You have 10 minutes to make it back to your car and act as if you had never been out here. After that, I’ll call off the person pretending to be me, and I’m sure it won’t take the cops too long to realize that “I’m” not longer there and they’ll come back.”

Shuuichi nodded, picked up the bag, and turned around, starting to walk back, knowing he could easily make the time the thief had set for him.

“Goodbye… for now,” Shuuichi said softly to the thief. He had no idea if he thief had heard him or not, but he refused to turn around and go back. He had to leave before the temptation to go back and talk more to the thief grew stronger.

The weight of the paper in his pocket felt as if it was the weight of the entire world.

Shuuichi knew they would meet again.

* * *

Just as the thief had promised, the cops returned soon after Shuuichi got back in the car.

They were all tired and disgruntled, another night of chasing the “thief” around with nothing to reap.

Shuuichi felt bad for them, but he dared not tell them what he knew, even if he knew how bad it was to do such a thing. If his uncle ever found out, he would be more than livid.

His uncle got in the car, and Shuuichi looked up from his phone.

“Get him?” Shuuichi asked, even though he knew the answer.

His uncle gave a deep, heavy sigh. “No.”

“Sorry,” Shuuichi said with fake empathy.

“You were okay in here? I know it was kind of long we were out there. You must have been bored.”

Shuuichi waved him off. “Don’t worry about it, I was fine. Thanks for leaving the keys in here, I’m glad I was able to recharge my phone while waiting at least.”

“Ah, it’s the least I could do when you were stuck out here for so long in the middle of the night.”

“Are we going home now?”

His uncle nodded. “Yes, and I can’t wait to finally get into bed. Today has been a mess.”

With that, his uncle started the car and waved goodbye to a few cops before pulling out of the area and onto the road that would take them home.

Shuuichi resisted the urge to paranoidly pat his pocket and make sure the flower head and the piece of paper were still there.

* * *

When they got home, Shuuichi’s uncle automatically wished him a goodnight and went upstairs to his room, stumbling on a few of the stairs as his body could take no more. Shuuichi waited for his uncle to get fully upstairs before heading back into his room and locking the door.

He went over to his desk and brushed aside some of the papers scattered around in front of his laptop. They all related to the Phantom Thief in some way or the other, and Shuuichi was going to look them over soon, just not right now. Opening his laptop and turning it on, he filled the time waiting for it to boot up by reaching into his pocket and taking out the flower and the piece of paper.

Carefully unfolding it, he looked at the contents. On the inside, a date, time, and location had been written.

His laptop finally booted up and he quickly typed in the password to log in. The name of the place seemed familiar, but he was unsure if it was the correct place he was thinking of. He knew it had been in the news a few times for some scandals, but it was still running despite some of the public’s protests.

Opening up his browser, he typed it in, and sure enough, it was the place he was thinking of. He smiled. Checking the date revealed that the thief wanted him to show up next week, which was fine with Shuuichi, but the problem would be the time the thief wanted him to show up. 12 A.M.. There was no way he would be able to get from his house all the way to the meet-up at that time of night, especially without leaving a trail he didn’t want to leave. Shuuichi wondered if he was no longer just swimming in the waters of obsession but drowning in them.

Was it guilt? Was if remorse? Either way, deep down, he very much knew he had done wrong when he hadn’t turned the thief in when he had the chance. Certainly, on some level, he was betraying his uncle. Now he was planning to meet the thief by himself? What if he took a taxi to the meet-up and it dropped him off at the exact location that was then robbed. That wouldn’t be good for Shuuichi.

Not to mention, there was no possible way to explain to his uncle why he would possibly need to go anywhere that late at night.

It looked more and more impossible by the minute, but he found a way to minimize the risks and make it work. At least that’s what he kept telling himself.  

* * *

A week went by without the thief doing anything. It made the case slow and a drag to do for anyone but Shuuichi.

With the info the thief had given him, he was able to make great strides on the case. Like he had imagined, some of the weird and unexplainable things about the Phantom Thief case became a lot clearer once it was looked at as if multiple people were collaborating. There was still the main Phantom Thief, but it was impossible to ignore everything once Shuuichi started to make connections and put things in their correct order.

The idea of the Phantom Thief working with other people had been a long crossed off idea. It was assumed it was too risky for the thief to collaborate with anyone, and harder to organize something so complex, and so that opinion had been discouraged to the point where it became stupid to suggest such a thing. But that was going off of a bad assumption they had made at the beginning of this case. The possibility of the thief working with others, perhaps even an organization, should have been a valid idea, revisited at each crime scene when there was evidence to back it up. Shuuichi forgave the cops for what they couldn’t know, what he knew, and hoped that someone would finally have enough courage to speak up and advance the theory forward.

His fingers itched to share what he had learned. But he knew that it would ruin everything, and could prevent him from seeing the thief again. That was the last thing he wanted. So his case files stayed buried deep on his computer where they would never see the light of day, much to his sadness. If he was to publish this report, he was sure it would have been one of his best ones to date.

Shuuichi glanced at the clock and started to shut his computer down. It was almost time to go.

His uncle was in the kitchen, calmly drinking a cup of coffee, and Shuuichi longed to sit down next to him with his own cup, but he couldn’t.

“You’re going now?” His uncle asked him.

“Yeah, Kaito should be here any minute.”

His uncle hummed. “Well alright then, just make sure you text me if you want me to pick you up. Have a fun time at Kaito’s.”

“I will, thanks.”

With that, his uncle went back to his coffee and Shuuichi quickly stepped out of the house before any more questions could be asked.  

Kaito did end up showing up a few minutes later. His car lights temporarily blinded Shuuichi before he turned them off.

“Hey, bro.”

“Hey, Kaito.”

“Come on get in, let’s go.”

Shuuichi took a deep breath, trying to ward off the nervousness shooting through his body. He stepped into the car and closed the door.

“You sure your uncle is okay with you doing this?”

“Yeah,” Shuuichi responded and hoped he didn’t sound too breathless.

Kaito nodded and turned on the lights again, putting the car in reverse.

“Why are you doing this again?” Kaito asked him, not taking his eyes off of the road.

“Because I need to.”

“You don’t _need_ to. You could like, I don’t know, let the authorities handle this?”

“I am—”

“Don’t say _you are_ the authorities. Just, don’t, bro.”

Shuuichi shut up and glanced nervously at Kaito, trying to gauge if he was mad at Shuuichi.   

Much to Shuuichi’s relief, he didn’t seem to be mad, but instead more worried than anything.

“Um, now is probably not the best time to tell you this, but I may or may not have told my uncle I was staying at your place for the night.”

“Well, yeah, that’s what you’re doing after this right?”

“Yes, but I… didn’t really tell him about this thing we’re going to first.”

Shuuichi saw Kaito’s knuckles turn white as he gripped the steering wheel tighter.

“You didn’t tell him about _any_ of this?”

“Well he knows about the sleepover part.”

“No, the whole part where you go chasing off after the Phantom Thief by your own.”

“No,” Shuuichi admitted guiltily.

“So I’m assuming there’s no actual cops waiting there for you either.”

“No.”

“Bro, I don’t think you understand that if you turn up dead or missing or something, they’re going to think I did it!”

“Tell them the truth then.” Shuuichi was certain he would be fine. He wouldn’t be involving another like this if he thought he could potentially get them in trouble.

“Bro,” Kaito groaned and Shuuichi couldn’t help but feel a bit bad for the situation he had put Kaito in. He was at least grateful Kaito wasn’t so upset by the idea he had turned around yet.

“Listen, you can’t call the cops. No matter what.”

“I wouldn’t,” Kaito said sighing. “If you truly believe you need to do this, for whatever reason you think you have a connection with him, even though this looks bad to me, then go for it, I guess,” Kaito said, mumbling the last part.

Shuuichi smiled as they approached the drop off point. “Thank you Kaito, I was sure you would understand.”

Kaito stopped the car once they got close enough. “Just be safe.”

Shuuichi opened the car door and stepped out. “Will do.”

Kaito gave him one last final look as he pulled back out onto the abandoned road. “I’ll be coming after that thief no matter how you feel about him if he does anything so—”

“I get it. Really, I do.”

Kaito gave it some thought before he put his thumb up and drove off.

Shuuichi looked at the building ahead.

Of all the buildings to choose, Shuuichi couldn’t believe the thief picked this one. It was dark when all the lights were off and gave off a foreboding sense, especially with how it loomed over Shuuichi.

Approaching the building, a note caught Shuuichi’s attention.

He picked it up, careful of his surroundings.

**Detective!**

**Come right on in. Don’t worry, since I know you won’t want to be associated with what I’m about to do, I made sure all the cameras were disabled, as well as the alarms, and all the doors have been unlocked for ease of travel (I turned off all the elevators too, though, so maybe not too much ease…)! Feel free to explore the building a bit if you want, but I’ll be waiting on the top floor! Don’t keep me waiting for too long or I might get too bored with you. And remember, I’ll be watching~**

Not the correct way to end a note in Shuuichi’s belief. It left him with a rather bitter taste in his mouth and he was weary of even entering the building.

He tested the handles with a cautious tug and exhaled with relief when no alarm went off, as promised.

A bit reassured, but still playing it safe, he stepped into the building, looking around to see if he could spot the security cameras. Spotting one, he noticed that the typical small red light that indicated they were on was off.

Was it really that simple for the thief to do such things, or was this again another one of the benefits of working with other people? It would seem the thief typically didn’t care about the alarms going off, the police usually already there, so Shuuichi was sure the extra precautions were mostly, if not all, for his sake.

He would have to be sure to thank the thief for that later.

Walking through the hallways with a renewed confidence that nothing would happen—he still looked around, but he wasn’t as worried about it—he knew he had one particular destination he had to go before he met the thief. The thief had said he was free to explore, so he didn’t think it would be too much of a stretch to think the thief _wanted_ him to explore.

Due to the fact that the thief had shut off the elevators, Shuuichi knew he would have to climb the stairs, and while that normally wouldn’t be a problem for him, the office he wanted to reach was near the top. Not that he wasn’t going to be going up there any way to meet the thief, but he was still annoyed he was denied the use of an elevator when so many other things had been dealt with by the thief.

Despite being off-put by no elevators, he moved on and found the nearest set of stairs that would take him all the way to the top level. He could use these to get to the floor he needed and then go to the thief afterwards.

Beginning the long trek up the stairs, he was careful to not go to fast as to lose his breath but also fast enough to keep a steady pace so he didn’t take forever to reach where he wanted.

Finally, he reached the floor before the top and got off the stairs. Shuuichi dared not to look at his phone, knowing he would be ticked off by the time he had spent going up the stairs.

“Elevators are so damn simple,” he grumbled under his breath as he took in deep breaths of air. “But no, of course not.”

Finding the CFO’s office, he entered. This room looked as if it was no exception to the thief’s words as the door was unlocked and no alarm went off, something Shuuichi would have expected as it was one of the offices typically most guarded. The office looked a little roughed up too, and Shuuichi would eat his hat if it was any reason other then the Phantom Thief’s doing.

While he felt it was against his basic morals to go snooping around like this, the detective in him sung. So many secrets that all companies hid from the public—now potentially at his fingertips, hidden no more.

Leaving the room elated, he went back to the stairs and climbed up to the final level.

Of all the things he expected to see when he got there, he didn’t expect to see the thief laughing.

“You—” the thief paused to take a breath, “—actually used the _stairs_?!”

Shuuichi felt his eyebrow twitch. “What do you mean?”

“Wow, you really believed that the elevator wasn’t working?”

“Yes!” He shouted indignantly.

“Hmm, too bad. Well, it was working.”

“I swear to—”

“There’s no use crying over spilled milk. If you want something as a “sorry,” you can take a look at this.” The thief took out a piece of paper folded multiple times. Unfolding it revealed it was an important company document.

Shuuichi leaned in close, marveling at the shear amount of incriminating evidence on the paper. He scrambled for his phone, and the minute the thief saw it, he folded the paper again.

“Hey!”

“Nuh-uh, no photos allowed!”

“I won’t get you in the photo, I promise.”

The thief still shook his head. “Nope. This baby here stays with me.”

“Why would you show it to me then?”

“Do you really want it?”

“Yes, please!”

The thief hummed as if considering it. “Alright then,” he said, and Shuuichi noticed he was backing up. “If I were you, then I’d probably start running if that was the case.”

“Huh?”

“Well, I might have turned off the alarms and cameras everywhere else, but…” The thief trailed off and pointed towards a camera pointed to the window. Shuuichi saw the red light glowing and reflecting off of the glass. “I mean, I disabled all of them, except this one!”

“Why?” But Shuuichi started to see where this was going and backed up as well. He backed up as the thief watched him, nodding as Shuuichi kept backing up until he found the button for the elevator and pressed the down button multiple times in a rush.

“Oh, because I planned to do this!” The thief said, taking his hat off, revealing the same alluring, beautiful purple hair, and bowing before putting his hat back on and turning his back to Shuuichi and stepping back, putting running distance between him and the window. Shuuichi pressed the elevator button more, mashing it more than necessary, knowing it would do nothing to make the elevator speed up but still doing it.

Just as the thief ran at the window, the doors to the elevator opened, and Shuuichi ran inside jamming the button for the first floor as he heard glass break and the alarms start to blare.

“Godfuckingdamnit!” He said, panicking as he basically punching the close door button.

It felt like forever, but finally they inched together until the doors finally closed.

If the door closing felt like forever, the journey down felt like it took the rest of the years of Shuuichi’s life, and he could physically feel his lifespan decreasing every second he had to spend in the elevator. To make matters worse, the elevators had alarms in it as well, and if Shuuichi couldn’t physically feel his head as being whole, he would think it was splitting in two.

Finally, the elevator jerked to a stop and chimed, signaling it was on the first floor, and Shuuichi hit the open door button with the same intensity he had hit the close button before it finally opened.

Relieved to finally get out of the damn elevator, Shuuichi rushed out of the elevator and rushed down the hall to the doors, flinging them open with force as he sprinted out of the building. The police were probably—most likely—on their way here, and Shuuichi wanted to be _very_ far away when they got here.

Luckily, when he looked up, he managed to see the Phantom Thief sitting on the edge to a close building, indicating he had been waiting for Shuuichi.

When he spotted Shuuichi—and Shuuichi had the very faint idea that he had been watching the entrance and waiting the whole time—he smiled and stood, the air whipping his cape around behind him.

In the distance, Shuuichi could barely hear police sirens over the blaring alarms of the building behind him, and Shuuichi watched the thief for directions, despite his body telling him to run and run and not wait for the thief.

Luckily, though, it seemed the thief didn’t plan on getting either of them caught today because he pointed to the left of him, and began to run.

Shuuichi, eager to finally start moving away from the scene of the crime, followed the thief as best as he could from the ground.

In many ways, he felt like all he wanted to do was stop and watch as the thief gracefully and confidently jumped from building to building, but he knew that he couldn’t; at least not right now.  

He saw the thief look down every once in awhile at Shuuichi, making sure he was keeping pace, before jumping to another building.

As they kept running away, the sound of alarms and sirens started to fade, and Shuuichi fought back the urge to stop and check if anyone was following them.

As the thief jumped from building to building, the road Shuuichi was on became darker and darker, and much harder to see the thief, but he was able to follow the thief regardless, especially because the road funneled him a sort of way that left very few options of where to go.  

Shuuichi panted a bit the longer he ran, but if anything he was more than glad he had been running with Kaito to train for something like this (more like with Kaito _watching_ but that was miniscule).

Shuuichi chased the thief for a few more minutes before the area opened up, forcing the thief to the ground. They continued running until they stopped at an abandoned parking lot.

“Hey, wait up!” Shuuichi shouted, trying to catch the thief’s attention. Shuuichi’s speed was no match for the thief’s and Shuuichi was having trouble keeping up even more now. The only benefit the thief being on the ground gave him was easier visibility of where exactly the thief was.

Where the thief was leading him, Shuuichi had no idea, and he was pretty sure that was part of the thief’s intention. He doubted this was the easiest way to get to where they were going, but rather this was more something to confuse Shuuichi about the exact way to get to the place.

Finally they came to another building and the thief barged through the doors, vanishing from Shuuichi’s sight as soon as he did so. It was definitely abandoned, judging by the rundown look of it and the way it was hidden. In fact, this was quite the well hidden base, if that’s what it was.

Following the thief’s example, he ran into the building, coming to a stop when he got inside.

He opened his mouth, but closed it, glancing around to see if he could spot the thief anywhere, his nervousness growing when it was dead silent.

“... Hello?” He asked loudly, wincing when his voice reverberated. He walked forward cautiously, checking his surroundings. An unknown area, in the middle of nowhere, no matter who he followed here, wasn’t good.

He walked through the building, heading towards the back. All around him were trampled shelves and he made the assumption that this once had to be a kind of supermarket, but definitely not for a long time.

He heard something swing open and looked around, quickly trying to assess the origin of the noise. When he managed to spot the door in the back, swinging back and forth, he bit his lip and summoned his courage before walking forward once more.

Careful not to trip on anything that had been toppled-over, he made his way to the back of the store.

By the time he made it to the door, it had stopped its residual swinging motion entirely. He pushed it open and shivered at the change of temperature, not to mention it was so dark he could barely see anything. It was really a fitting feeling for the chill Shuuichi had going down his back.

“Hello?” He tried again. At least this time it didn’t create an echo.

“Wow, you actually came back here!” Shuuichi heard a voice say and a thud behind him, the ground shaking a bit.

Shuuichi quickly turned around. “Huh? Where were you?!”

“Always look up when entering a room!” The thief advised.

“You hid up there?” Shuuichi said incredulously.

The thief ignored him, reaching to the side. “Oh, and a lightswitch too! Always look for the lightswitch!” With that, he flicked on the lightswitch, making Shuuichi close his eyes for a second, only to slowly open them back up gradually.

The thief put his hands on Shuuichi, forcibly turning him around despite Shuuichi’s protests.

“What—” Shuuichi took a moment to take in the beauty of it, “—What is all this?”

Piles upon piles of papers and valuables lay on the floor, scattered at his feet. They seemed to be shoved aside though to clear a part in the middle where there was a card and a full blue rose.

When Shuuichi didn’t make any move to go for it, he heard the thief make a little “umm,” noise, and Shuuichi glanced back at him, only to see the thief immediately snap his hat over his face.

“For you,” the thief said, and Shuuichi was barely able to make out the words from how much the thief had his face shoved into his hat.

Shuuichi gave a small chuckle and went to pick up what had been placed on the floor.

Carefully opening the card, he had to stifle a laugh at the shitty joke on the inside.  

 **Can we be** **_partners_ ** **in crime?**

Shuuichi glanced back at the thief, who was peering at him nervously over the brim of his hat. He leaned down and picked the rose up, placing it in his front pocket, letting the petals stick out while the stem rested in his pocket.

He walked over the thief in a calm manner, one in which he was sure was threatening, but unmeaning so.

When he was in front of the thief, he placed his hand on the thief’s hat, taking it from him and placing it back on his head, replacing the empty space in the thief’s hands with his instead.

“Yes,” Shuuichi said, smiling at the thief lovingly.

The thief smiled, it was wobbly with an overload of emotions, but Shuuichi could tell it was a happy smile nonetheless.

“Just… not the crime part,” Shuuichi laughed.

The thief gave a fake pout. “Whatttt?! What do you mean? You just committed a crime and all the sudden it’s “no crime, good detective” again?!”  

“Well no one knows I commited a crime.”

“If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” The thief countered with a huff.

Shuuichi just laughed more.

“But alright, I won’t rope Mr. Detective into any more crime like that.” The thief smiled slyly. “Unless he wants to be—”

“No.”

“Aww, alright.”

“But, still, thanks for letting me explore a bit in that building. I found something important.”

The thief smiled. “See! Sometimes crime _does_ help you get to where you want.”

“What about that other paper?” Shuuichi asked.

“Oh. I’ll mail that in as an anonymous tip!”

“What? Why?”

“I mean, I’m so glad you guys don’t look that hard into these kinds of things. Do you know how many anonymous “tips” I’ve sent in?”

“Some of those are you?”

“Duh, detective. Man do you guys like never pay attention?”

“But why?”

“There’s nothing I hate more than entitled assholes who bully their way to the top and do horrible things to good people. And then get away with it—because of “lack of evidence.””

Shuuichi sighed. “That doesn’t mean you should steal from them.”

The thief shrugged.

“Sooo, we’re still on, right?”

“On for what?”

“A date!”

“Oh.” Now it was Shuuichi’s turn to blush. “Yeah! When?”

“Same place and time tomorrow?” The thief asked with a smile.

“No!”

The thief laughed at his refusal. “Alright, where do you want to go then?”

“Do you know that bakery down the road from the central park?”

“Oh! Oh! The one with that like world-class coffee or whatever award they received?”

“Yeah, that one. 12 P.M. sound good?”

“Sounds perfect!”

After their agreement, there was a silence.

“Sooo, are you going to leave now?”

Shuuichi flushed with embarrassment. “I… kind of don’t know how to get back home from here,” he admitted.

The thief gave a light laugh and tugged on Shuuichi’s hand, making Shuuichi follow after him. “I’ll show you the way, but don’t tell anyone!”

* * *

The thief quickly returned him to the normal streets, and with one last goodbye, the thief slunk back off into the shadows to go who-knows-where.

Shuuichi brought out his phone relieved to see the battery hadn’t died and dialed up Kaito.

The sigh of relief he got when Kaito saw Shuuichi alive, that quickly turned into a groan and a facepalm when he spotted the flower. Shuuichi enjoyed seeing Kaito so befuddled, and it made the whole night worth it.  

* * *

Shuuichi ran down the street at breakneck speed. There was no way in _hell_ he was going to miss this.

His lungs begged him to slow down and take a few deep breaths, but he ignored the sensation, pushing onwards.

After what seemed like forever, he arrived at the café. When he checked his phone, though, he realized that he had more than enough time—”more than enough” being a short window of five minutes to spare—and could have taken at least a short break somewhere along the way. Oh well, he’d rather be safe than sorry.

He pushed open the door to the café and gave a sigh of relief when he felt the cold air blast him in the face. Looking around he spotted the signature purple hair that he was looking for, his back turned to Shuuichi while he idly played around on his phone to occupy himself while waiting. Shuuichi slowly walked over to the table and tapped the person on the shoulder. The person’s head snapped up instantly when he did— Shuuichi didn’t think he’d ever get used to the reflexed the other had—and he gave a gasp, looking at Shuuichi with horror.

“You’ve turned into a tomato!” The person said.

“Laugh it up,” Shuuichi said, but laughed along with the person.

Shuuichi held out his hand. “Shuuichi Saihara, pleased to meet you.”

The person looked at his hand for a minute, considering it before he placed his hand in it. “Kokichi Ouma, same.”

Their eyes met and it took all of a few seconds before they both burst out laughing.

Outside, cop cars sped by.

“They’re coming for you,” Shuuichi joked.

“Nuh-uh, they’re coming for you,” Kokichi countered.

They both laughed again.

A quick peck on the lips from Kokichi sealed the deal.  

 


End file.
